


5 Times E and Vince Didn't Get Together

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Entourage
Genre: 5 Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:10:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways E and Vince could've gotten together but, in canon, didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Basement Party

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Five Things fic, meaning that it is five unconnected AUs tied together by a common theme. Each chapter will explore how the boys could have gotten together.

1.  
They get together at a party in Liz Dunne’s basement while her parents are out of town. They’re fourteen, almost fifteen, and they’re playing spin the bottle. There’s ten of them—five girls, five boys—and they’re all a little baked.

By the time it gets to Vince’s turn, there’s already been a queer spin. Two turns before him, Danielle O’Doyle landed on Andrea Leiber, and the whole group watched, transfixed, as Danielle held Andi’s face and kissed her mouth. Vince got hard just watching them, but when Andi moaned just like she did when he fingered her under the bleachers after that lame pep rally last month and her hand shot out to catch Danielle’s, he nearly lost it.

So when Vince’s spin lands on E, there’s really nothing he can say to get out of it. After all, they made Danielle and Andi kiss, and fair’s fair.

Vince licks his lips nervously because Danielle and Liz are staring at him, eyes big and hungry like Vince’s never seen a girl look, not even during sex. Turtle and a guy named Mark, who Vince doesn’t really know but Danielle claims is cool, both roll their eyes in and make comments about how this is fucking faggoty and lame. Dan Simpson says nothing; he’s been drooling over Karen Fisher all night, and she’s been mooning right back.

E’s just looking at him. Vince can’t read anything into his expression, and he feels fear skitter up and down his nerve endings. Because okay, maybe once or twice, when he’s had an arm slung around E’s shoulders or E smiles at him just the right way, Vince’s thought about kissing E before. And maybe a few times he’s let his mind wander from kissing to things that are a little more advanced, things that are variations on the messy, graceless fumbling he did with Danielle or E’s cousin Cheryl. He’s just wrapped himself up in the safe idea that it could never and would never happen. Ever. And if it never happened, then he’d never have to deal with what wanting that meant.

“E, I don’t have to—” Vince begins in an act of desperate self-defense, but Danielle cuts him off.

“Oh, yeah, you do. Like you mean it.” She grins, and if she wasn’t so fucking hot, he would hate her. But she is, and she’s also a genuinely cool chick. She’s just evil. “I want to see sparks, boys.”

“Fuck you, Danielle,” Vince bites out, but his voice is shaking. Actually shaking. Which is stupid. It’s not like he’s gay or anything. It’s just—this is E. It’s kind of weird. It’ll make things weird.

“Maybe later,” she quips. Her lips are full and soft, and they shine with flavored lip gloss, but her teeth are a little crooked. Her family lives in his building, and he knows they can’t afford braces.

“It’s cool,” E says, cutting through what could become a problem if Danielle keeps pushing Vince. It’s one thing if it’s just a goof, but it’s a whole other thing if she keeps going and pulls Vince’s pride into question. “It’s fine, Vince. Let’s just do it.”

They’re sitting next to each other because they always stick pretty close. Plus, you usually don’t land on the person you sit next to when you play this game.

Vince shifts, turning his whole body so that instead of facing the group Indian style, he’s on his knees facing E. E’s a got about an inch on him when they’re standing up. Vince isn’t short for his age, but his grown brothers and his dad are at least six feet. He’s hovering just below five foot four, which is better than most of the other freshmen, but he’s still waiting to hit that infamous growth spurt his ma keeps promising him. Right now, he’s higher up than E, who’s sitting with his knees tucked up, so he puts his hand on E’s shoulder for balance and kind of leans forward and down.

He knows he’s a good kisser. He’s got more practice than most guys his age, but he’s sweating and nervous, and Jesus, their friends are watching, and E is just sitting there, looking up at him and waiting. Still, he manages to get his shit together and press his lips to E’s.

There’s nothing at first. Just dry lips on dry lips, then someone, probably Danielle, clears her throat insistently. Suddenly, E’s lips part, and Vince’s tongue darts between them, just a casual ‘hey, what’s up, nice teeth you got here’.

Then E’s tongue starts moving, rubbing against his. One of his hands lands on the side of Vince’s neck, and he’s sucking on Vince’s tongue. Vince is pretty sure he’s going to die. Or come. Or both. Yeah, probably both.

He falls forward, both his hands on E now, moving from his shoulders up his neck and into his hair, and why the hell haven’t they done this before? It’s not weird. It’s hot, and it’s easy and good, it’s so fucking good. Vince pants into E’s mouth and pulls E towards him because he is not touching enough of E. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever touch enough of him.

He feels E’s right hand land on the side of his face. His thumb is on Vince’s cheekbone, and when it strokes across his skin, gentle in contrast to the desperate push and pull between them, it nearly breaks him. Vince doesn’t know what it is, but something cracks, and he feels like he might cry. He’s hard and lost, and God, he wants so much more.

He breaks away wanting, panting, shaking, and everyone’s staring at them. Usually, Vince loves attention. He lives on it because he doesn’t really get that much of it at home, but now he really just wants the floor of Liz’s basement to open up and swallow them whole.

“That was hot,” Danielle breathes. Her eyes are bright, and her lips are parted slightly, and she’s staring at them like she wants to eat them alive. She’s sitting close enough that he can actually smell how turned on she is. 

Andi and Liz both nod in agreement, and so does the fifth girl—he thinks her name is Holly. It could be Molly. Fuck, he’s having a hard time thinking right now.

Dan and Karen are staring, but Dan’s moved closer to her. He’s got his hand on top of hers now.

Turtle’s got his arms folded over his chest. “So you a fairy now, Vince?” he asks.

Vince opens his lips and finds his mouth and throat so dry that his tongue actually clicks when he tries to move it. He looks around the circle in horror, everyone staring at him with wide and curious stares, waiting to hear how he replies. They want to know if Vince Chase is a flaming fucking fairy, and the honest answer, the one that he can still feel in the way he reacted to E’s skin, is choking him.

This is Queens. He knows they won’t react well if he says yes, and he knows they won’t believe him if he says no, not after what just happened. But he’s not sure if he can keep it in if he has to really look at E. So before he meets his best friend’s eyes, he runs scared like the pussy he is.

He makes it all the way up the stairs and onto the street outside Liz’s house. It’s late, and there aren’t any cars on the street. Too late to go home. He told his ma he was staying with E tonight. Now he’s not sure he can.

“Vince!” He turns on battered asphalt, and there’s E on Liz’s stoop and coming towards him. Of course. “What the hell, man?”

His shoulders sag. He wraps his arms around himself and sighs. “It’s nothing.”

“Come on, man, Turtle was just joking. Liz thinks you’re having a nervous breakdown or something, so come back in. I told them the pot was getting to you, but we’ve gotta get back down there and let ‘em know you didn’t spaz out or anything.”

Vince just stares down at his Converse. There’s a hole in the toe that’s starting to get big. He’ll have to see if Donny or Ricky or maybe Johnny have a pair they outgrew that will fit him.

“Hey, if you’re freaking about the kiss, don’t. It’s just a game. It’s doesn’t mean anything.”

Vince feels color flood his face and wishes he could force it down. His eyes sting and his throat hurts because E, who is almost always right, is so wrong right now.

“Yeah, it does, E. It means a lot. It means everything.” He looks up at E’s face, and oh, God, he wants him so bad that it’s almost painful. It scares the shit out of him. He feels a tear slip free and hates himself for it. “I think I’m a fag, E,” he chokes out before it has a chance to strangle him. 

E rolls his eyes. “You’re not gay. You’re the least gay person I know.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

“That doesn’t make you gay.”

“I want to touch you.” He takes a step towards E, and he’s trying to imagine what it’s going to be like tomorrow, when he doesn’t have a best friend anymore. He wonders if he’ll still like all the things he likes today if he doesn’t have E around anymore, and he doubts it. But he doesn’t want E to stay with him if it’s going to be all wrong. “E, I think I want us to fuck,” Vince says a little desperately, hoping that it will push E into realizing that no, really, he’s not kidding. “That doesn’t make me gay?”

“I don’t know, Vince. I’ve seen you with girls, man, and you’re not gay. Maybe you like both? Some people do.”

“I like you.” Vince is standing in front of him now, eye to eye if he tilts his head back just a little bit. “I think I’d fit with you.”

“Vince.” E sighs.

“I really want to kiss you again,” Vince says, and that’s all the warning he gives. Then he’s kissing E again, not tentative this time. He wants it all, and he takes it. They stumble backwards and end up pressed against the handrail that brackets the steps up to Liz’s house, E’s hands twisted in his t-shirt and his tongue in Vince’s mouth. It’s so fucking good, and it ends too soon.

E rubs at his mouth with his hand, not wiping it off but looking like he’s feeling it, trying to understand. “Vince,” E says again. That’s all he says. 

The seconds seem to stretch out, and Vince’s stomach twists and his palms sweat because somehow E saying nothing is worse than him giving Vince a grand and final fuck off. He’s got this strumming vibration of hope that’s coupled with a hundred and fifty thousand worst case scenarios playing at warp speed in his brain as he stands on the bottom step of Liz’s stoop. He wishes he could look at the empty street or into the windows of Liz’s house or anywhere but into E’s face.

They stare at each other for a moment that seems to drag on for fucking ever, and then E grabs the front of Vince’s shirt and pulls him forward so they’re kissing again. Vince pulls out a move he’s used on girls on the past, sliding his hands down E’s back and into the pockets of his jeans, pulling him tight against him. He can feel that E’s hard and that he likes it, which isn’t really surprising at this point. It’s still fucking terrifying, but it doesn’t stop him from grinding against E, hard enough to make them both gasp.

“This is totally crazy,” E mumbles. He has his forehead tilted down and pressed against Vince’s. Vince has gotten a leg between E’s, and they’re breathing against each other’s mouths, and they’re going to come, out here on the street in the orange glow of streetlights. It’s just too insane and great.

“E,” Vince pants. “E, I think I love you, man.”

E’s eyes go dark, more black than blue, and then Vince is being kissed again. He comes apart, shaking and bucking into E, and he shivers himself into pleasure that’s completely new and totally amazing.

E doesn’t, though. He’s close, but he’s not all the way there. Vince is raw and tired, but he goes to kiss him again, and E stops him with hand on his chest. Vince covers his hand with his own because he doesn’t want E to pull away, not now.

“I gotta go tell Liz you’re okay and that we’re leaving,” E says. “You can’t go back in there like that. You’re a mess.” 

Vince looks down at the spot on the front of his jeans, a big neon sign that he’s just gotten off. Aside from kiss-bruised lips, E looks fine, but if Vince has his way, he won’t for long, so he nods.

“Wait here?” E asks.

“Where’m I gonna go, E?”

“I don’t know. Just wait for me.” He balls the fabric of Vince’s shirt under his hand and pulls Vince forward for another kiss, then another, tasting him. He pulls back, looks at Vince, then does it again.

“I think you might be gay,” E says with a grin when he finally lets go.

Vince grins back. “I think you might be, too.”

“Yeah.” Then E does that thing again where he puts his hand on Vince’s face and strokes with his thumb, and everything inside Vince just melts. He places a closed-mouthed kiss on Vince’s lips, then says, “I think I love you, too.”

“I’ll be right here.” Vince nods and smiles, feeling all of it fall away—the fear and the nervousness and the idea of a tomorrow with no E. With that gone, it’s easy to watch him climb the steps to the house because E’s coming right back. He can wait.


	2. Running Lines

2.

They get together junior year of high school. They’re in E’s bedroom, the house is empty except for Eric’s older sister Maggie, and they’re running Vince’s lines.

E’s sprawled out on his bed on his stomach, script in front of him. Vince is pacing because he has to know this shit cold, and he’s complete crap with Shakespeare. It’s hard to remember and harder to get inside.

He stalls out mid-monologue and turns to E, who’s zoned out staring at the Alien poster hanging on the back of his door. “What’s the next line?”

E blinks out of his daze and looks at him. “Aren’t you supposed to know this shit, Romeo? You tell me. I don’t know where the hell we are.”

“You’re dead. I’m coming to see you and kill myself.” Vince waves a hand. “The usual. Come on, E, you know this story.”

“Explain to me again why I’m Juliet?” E asks. His tone is sour, and he glares down at the script.

Vince tilts his head. “Because I’m Romeo. You have to be everyone else so I can be Romeo, so right now you’re Juliet, and you’re mostly dead. It’s the end.”

“Do I need to act dead?”

“It’d help. Just keep the script close?”

“You are such a freak, man.”

“Look, just roll over and think corpse.”

“Think corpse,” E mutters. “Corpses can’t think, Vince. They’re dead.” 

“Well, think coma, then. Fuck, E, just play dead, okay? I have to get through this fucking scene, and it trips me up every time.”

E rolls over and props himself up on one elbow. “Because you have to make out with a dead girl?”

“No, because the guy’s wife is dead, and Shakespeare has him monologue for ten minutes. If the love of your life is lying dead, you don’t monologue. Plus, the character’s, like, our age. It’s not realistic.”

“Right. And a guy getting turned into a donkey is?”

“That’s a whole different play.”

“I’m just saying, Vince, what you do isn’t really that grounded in reality.”

“Shut up and lie down, E. Just let me do this,” he mutters. He doesn’t like it when things are hard.

So E closes his eyes and folds his hands on his chest while Vince tries to take Act 5, Scene 3 from the top. 

Vince watches him lying there for a moment. The longer he sits, the more relaxed E gets until he’s dozing. His lips part, then he’s still, and Vince tries to imagine that his chest isn’t moving up and down with the rhythm of his breath.

It shouldn’t be such an easy thing to visualize— to imagine E’s skin is flushed, but E’s not breathing, not there. It shocks Vince, freezes and rattles him.

He lets himself touch E’s face because that’s what Romeo would do with his Juliet. He’d touch her face because he doesn’t want it to be real. He wants something, anything, to tell him that what he’s been told is wrong.

The lines aren’t heavy and awkward anymore. They’re eloquent and they ache, and so does Vince as he kneels on the bed next to E. The movement jostles him awake, but E doesn’t open his eyes.

“Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour?” Vince asks in a whisper, trailing the backs of his fingers down E’s cheek.

E’s Adam’s apple moves, which isn’t very convincing for someone who’s dead. Vince sees it, but Romeo doesn’t, and for right now, Romeo’s driving.

“For fear of that, I still will stay with thee,” he promises, “and never from this palace of dim night depart again. Here, here will I remain.” Vince is surprised to find that he means it. He really does. He’ll stay with E forever. He wants to.

“Vince, hang on a second.”

But he doesn’t. He keeps talking; old English trips off his tongue, and it’s almost perfect. The best it can be without affecting the accent because the love is real. He stares down into E’s face and kisses him because, Vince thinks as he seals his mouth to E’s, if he was going to kill himself, this would probably be the last thing he’d want to do.

In the script, Juliet lays limp, but E moves. His mouth opens, and he makes a sound in the back of this throat; the scene is ruined, but Vince doesn’t care. E tastes like soda and the cold cuts he had for lunch and just E. It’s a flavor that’s purely human and base and warm and smooth. He plants a hand on the mattress beside E’s head and holds himself over him.

He kisses E until he’s dizzy, until his chest aches, until his arm trembles under the strain of his weight, until he’s hard enough to hammer nails. Then he pulls back and looks into E’s eyes. They’re wide and surprised, but they’re not angry.

“Was that acting?”

“Yes. No.” Vince licks his lips. “Mostly no.”

“Mostly no?”

“The thees and thys weren’t me.”

“But the kissing?”

Vince can feel his cheeks heat. “He kisses her. It’s in the script.”

E rolls his eyes. “I doubt he’d kiss a corpse with tongue.”

“He loves her,” Vince chokes. It feels more like an ‘I love you.’

“Still,” E says. “Vince, what was that?” His hands land on Vince’s back. “What’s this?”

“I, fuck, I don’t know, E. I just… had to.”

“You had to for the scene?”

“I had to because I had to kiss you.”

E’s eyes narrow as he thinks. Vince can almost see wheels turning in his brain, but E hasn’t made him move. His arms are burning again, threatening to give out on him, and his body is pressed along E’s.

“Because you were in character?”

“Because I had to kiss you, E. Jesus, I don’t know what happened—it just felt right.”

E looks at him forever. Maybe not forever, but that’s what it feels like.

“Be sure.”

Vince blinks. “Of what?”

“That you had to. That you have to.”

“Kiss you?”

“I don’t know, Vince, whatever.”

“I want you.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Be sure.”

Vince opens his mouth to say that he’s not sure. After all, this could be a huge fucking mistake. He’s had plenty of girlfriends and a couple hook ups with other guys in the drama department, but he only has one E. He’s not going to get another if he messes up with this one, and that’s huge.

But he is sure. There’s nothing else for him. He thinks for a minute about all the women he’ll never sleep with if he says yes, and when he holds them all up next to this, here, with E, they’re nothing.

“I am,” Vince says. It’s a step. The next step he takes will have three words, but not until E’s ready to hear it and he’s ready to say it.

For now, it’s enough, because E is smiling at him with those soft, warm lips. “Good. Then kiss me again.”

And Vince does.


	3. Groping Westward

They get together the spring Vince turns twenty-one. He’s a month away from leaving for LA. He’s been bumming around Queens since graduation, working odd jobs and shit food service gigs between auditioning in the city, and it’s going nowhere. He’s going nowhere.

So when Johnny says he’s got room out in LA, Vince knows he’s got to go. He’ll die if he stays in Queens. He’ll be another almost-was story hanging out at Mulroney’s Bar telling a double shot of Jack how he could’ve been somebody, he could’ve been a star. 

When Johnny makes the offer, Vince goes straight to E. And when E throws his skepticism in Vince’s face, it stings like a blow. 

He sulks off to Turtle’s to get baked and cool off. When he tells Turtle his idea, he’s met with excitement. Enthusiasm, even. Turtle thinks it’s genius. He thinks that they all need to get the fuck out of Queens, he says, because through the haze of pot smoke, he can see that he’s just as stuck as the rest of them.

Vince makes his final decision that he’s definitely going about a month before he turns 21, when his ma starts seriously talking about him getting a job working for the telephone company. He’s not made for that life.

He figures it’ll take another month to straighten things out with Johnny and his ma, a week to figure out logistics. Add on two weeks’ notice for the burger joint he was working at. And then there’s the time it’ll take to get E to come with him.

He tries talking up LA. He tries trash talking Queens. He tries a little reverse psychology and a lot of passive aggression, but E doesn’t budge. He hasn’t since the first time Vince mentioned it.

It comes down to blunt force because subtle manipulations aren’t working on E. They can sometimes, but only when E lets them. This time, he’s not standing for it, and Vince sits on the couch in the little room of an apartment E’s living in over the Leibers’ garage a block from his parents house while he tells Vince no yet again.

“I can’t just drop everything, Vince.”

“Why not?”

“To do what?” E asks. “Seriously, what would I do out there?”

“I don’t know. Same thing you’re doing here. Only it’d be sunny.”

“It’s sunny here now.”

“No. It’s crowded. Look, just come. If it doesn’t work, you can always come home.”

E stares him down. “I can’t drop my whole life and run out to California, Vince. It’s crazy.”

“So be crazy. What’ll it hurt?”

“I don’t do crazy. That’s not me,” E says. “There’s no good reason for me to go.”

Vince leans forward on the couch and looks up at E. E’s pacing, and he looks frustrated. He’s an assistant manager on closing at a Sbarro’s. Vince thinks he’d be frustrated, too, if that was his life.

“Go because I want to be you with me.”

E rolls his eyes at him and snorts. “That’s no fucking reason.”

“It’s a damn good reason. I want you there. I want us to do this together, E,” Vince says. Then he throws himself of the cliff he’s been living on the edge of since he hit puberty. “I want you.”

E comes to a halt and stares at him, eyes big and wide. He glares at him. “Fuck you.”

“No. I want you, and I sure as hell can’t have you here. You’re the only good thing in Queens, E. You’re the best thing I’ve got going for me, period.”

“You looked in a mirror lately?” E snaps, and Vince grins. That’s a good sign. That’s a fucking banner.

“Yeah, you’re still the best thing. We can do this, E. We can be something, something bigger than Queens. We can be Hollywood.”

“You can be. You’re gonna be, Vince, but I’m not ever going to be Hollywood. I’m just Queens.”

“We can have everything,” Vince says. He leans forward and reaches out to catch the bottom of E’s shirt with his hand. He tugs him closer and looks up at him, offering E his world with his eyes. “Come with me, E. Be with me.”

Still standing, E puts a hand on Vince’s shoulder. He holds on but doesn’t push, just sort of kneads it like a cat making a place to sleep. It feels good, really good.

“Be with me,” Vince repeats. “Be with me here and be with me in LA, just, E, be with me.”

E pushes then, shoving Vince backwards with his hand into the worn out cushions of the third-hand couch. For a split second, he panics, and then he realizes that E is still holding his shoulder, leaning over him with one knee braced on the couch beside him.

He holds his breath while E seems to study him with hot blue eyes, and then he exhales it all, pushing himself up so that the rush of air flows between E’s lips. Vince’s hands catch E by the waist and tugs him down onto his lap.

It’s high school, making out on couches. Vince’s abused more than his fair share of couches, but the body on top of him has never felt so solid, so real. E’s waist doesn’t really curve in like a girl’s does. There’s a straighter shot down his body, and it’s easier for Vince to hook his thumbs in his belt loops to pull them together.

“Tell me you’re coming with me,” Vince demands when they break apart to breathe.

“Vince,” E sighs, moving in to kiss him again. And Vince can’t say no to E’s tongue in his mouth, but this isn’t over. He’s not going to just forget this.

“Say you’ll go,” Vince murmurs against the stubble-rough skin of E’s jaw. “E, please.”

Both of E’s hands are in Vince’s hair, and just, this is better than any girl Vince’s ever been with. 

“I need you to come with me, E.”

E stops. He pulls back and looks into Vince’s eyes, his own dark and shadowed. “I can’t take care of you, Vince,” he says. “I can’t.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“You are. Since we were kids, you’ve been asking me to, and I don’t know if I can anymore, Vince. I can barely take care of myself right now, with things all up in the air like they are for Maggie and my folks.”

E looks down at him, his hands carding through Vince’s hair in a way that makes him purr even though he kind of resents the fact that E is, of course, right. He wants E but he also wants the ease and comfort and protected feeling that E brings with him.

“What if I can take care of myself?” he asks.

“You won’t if I go with you.”

“When I can, will you come out to California?” Vince asks. “Will you be with me if I can do that?”

“Vince—”

“Will you? I’ll wait for you out there, E, if you tell me you’re going to come.”

E sighs, and his shoulders sag. He rests with their foreheads touching and rubs his nose against Vince’s. “If I could, Vince, I would come. But I can give you now. I can give you me until you leave. I can’t promise you more after that.”

It’s not what he wants. It’s far the hell away from what he wants, and it’s scary, but it’s enough, and Vince takes it with both hands, pulling E with him as they fall into a lying position on E’s ratty couch. Now’s more than he could’ve dreamed of a year ago.


	4. New York State of Mind

They get together right before they start filming Queens Boulevard. They spend the days beforehand strained and distanced, and Vince is pretty sure that’s all E’s fault. 

Okay, not really. If Vince is honest with himself, he can admit that he’s been a complete douche to E lately. Hell, if Johnny’s pointing it out, then it’s probably even worse than he thought.

It’s just that things are changing. And he doesn’t like it, goddamn it. He’s got this life and this world and these guys, and things are good. They’re really good. So why can’t E be happy?

Vince stares out the window of the limo and thinks about the fact that he’s facing the next three months in New York without E. Then he wonders why E couldn’t have picked something else about their relationship to change.

If Vince had to pick one, he’d pick the sex thing. Or rather, the lack of a sex thing. Of all the things in his relationship with E that needs fixing, he thinks it’s the lack of a sex thing that needs fixing the most.

He wonders if E’s actually going to bring his wallet to the airport and thinks that he probably will. E’s a man of his word. It’s one of the things Vince loves about him. There’s a lot of them, but that’s one of his favorites. His dad was an unreliable, lying drunk, so dependability is a trait Vince learned to appreciate young, and E’s got that in spades.

Vince’s kind of afraid that if he actually gets on that plane tonight without E, he won’t be there when they come back from Queens. The fear makes his stomach hurt, and it doesn’t go away, not even when E finally shows up at the airport.

In fact, when E’s old piece of shit car finally does show up, that nervous feeling actually gets worse. He’s not used to being afraid. He hasn’t done real fear since his dad stopped drinking.

E takes a look at the plane, then shakes his head. “Only a real asshole would spend thirty thousand dollars on a flight when the whole job’s only paying sixty.”

“It’s worth it.” Vince glances back at the plane, then at E’s disapproving, amused face. Normally, he’d get a charge out of it, sometimes a hard on. Now he just feels a little sick inside. “How else are we gonna bring the Sherpa weed and the dog?”

“Yeah, well, you’re still an asshole.” E sighs, then reaches into his back pocket. “Here’s your wallet.”

Right. The wallet. The only fucking reason E’s here. That’s completely fucked up, Vince thinks. Wrong and fucked up and just… no.

“Thanks,” is what Vince actually says, and he takes the wallet from E’s hand. Their fingers brush, he’s instantly hard and this is awkward and fucking awful. He’s not used to this – things being weird with E.

So he opens it and looks down at his ID and credit cards just to give him something to do, but even that’s not enough. They end up staring at each other, waiting for something to happen, but all that changes is that E looks away. Vince knows that E’s not going to change his mind.

There’s nothing else to say, really, and that feeling moves from his stomach into his chest and squeezes. He lifts his wallet and waves at E, then turns and makes his way onto the plane.

Turtle and Johnny finish waving at E, and Vince follows them into the cabin. The plane is luxurious. The seats are leather, and Turtle’s got Arnold settled in an empty space between seats in the back. 

Vince drops into a seat in the middle section of the plane and looks out the window. E’s still standing there, hands in his pockets, looking small and far away. When he looks away, Johnny is staring at him.

“What?”

Johnny lifts an eyebrow. “You’re not seriously leavin’ without him, are you?”

Vince shrugs, slumping in his seat as the plane rumbles beneath him. “It’s his choice.”

Johnny rolls his eyes and shakes his head. He doesn’t need to say anything for Vince to know what Johnny’s thinking. Johnny fucking knows. He knows, and when he nods, Vince’s whole world tilts on his axis. 

“Johnny—” Vince begins, but Johnny shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t be talkin’ to me, bro.”

The thing is—Johnny’s right. He’s had a lot of right things to say today. Vince just hasn’t wanted to listen to him. Well, he hears him now. He pushes to his feet, walks to the cockpit, and sticks his head in. They’ve already started taxiing, but when he asks, the pilot stops and opens the door.

He takes the stairs at something just shy of a run and crosses the tarmac to E, shouting to him before he reaches him.

“You’re telling me you’re willing to fuck up our friendship?” he demands, still unable to believe that they’re still on this, that E really wants things to change. “’Cause if this doesn’t work out, there’s no turning back. My best friend, I can’t fire. But my manager, he’s replaceable.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” E says. He means it. Vince wonders if he’ll take another risk if Vince asks him right, but he laughs it off.

“Yeah, at 5% of me, I’d take that chance too.”

“10%. Plus health insurance.” E’s phone rings, and Vince is ready to kill whoever’s on the other end of the line. “Hello?”

“Who’s that? Kristen? Let me talk to her. I wanna settle this whole thing,” he says, waving the phone away. Yeah, he’ll settle it all right. He’ll tell her that she’s right. He’ll tell her that he wants and is going to have her boyfriend, and that she should just move the hell on. 

“Hold on a second.”

Then E hands him the phone, and it’s Scarlett fucking Johansson. Vince’s more distracted by E’s “who me?” expression than by her voice, and it’s not the image of her beautiful face that fills his head, it’s E. E who’s stronger than he is, more mature, more together, and just… more. 

Vince snaps the phone shut when she hangs up, then stares at E. “Nice.”

E’s grin is small and humble. “That’s what I do.”

Vince puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls him forward. He catches E’s face with his other hand and kisses him, long and deep, pushing his tongue into E’s mouth. It’s insanely stupid and careless and so damn good Vince can’t even breathe.

When he pulls away, E is staring at him with wide eyes. Vince squeezes his shoulder and points at the jet. “Get on the plane.”

E’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again. He finally says, “What about my car?”

All things considered, that’s not the worst thing E could say, and they’re walking to the plane now, his hand still on E’s shoulder. Even so, considering the fact that he’s just done an excavation of E’s teeth with his tongue, it’s not what he was expecting to hear.

“Your car? You want me to buy you a new car?”

“No, I like my car.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Vince says, sliding his arm around E’s shoulder. “Leave it. I can’t have my manager driving around in a piece of shit like that.”

And then he kisses E again, right there on the runway with Johnny and Turtle watching and shouting. E kisses him back for a moment before he tugs away. Then E runs up the stairs of the plane and takes Johnny down, tackling him like a linebacker.

They’re still laughing through taxiing and takeoff. E’s sitting next to him, and Johnny’s in a row facing him while Turtle’s digging through his bag for the special brownies Black Hack’s baker (seriously, the guy knows everyone) fixed up, since there’s no smoking on the plane. Vince’s hand finds E’s, and he feels like a fifteen-year-old girl.

“’Bout fucking time,” Johnny mutters, his eyes skating over their interwoven fingers. “Just promise me I can be there when you explain this to Kristen. I want to see her face.”

“I’ll bring a camera,” Turtle calls, and that’s all the discussion there is. These are his boys. They’re cool. They’re family. They love him, and they love E, and everything’s going to work out. 

“Jesus, Kristen,” E groans. Vince squeezes his hand. 

“You’ll handle it. That’s what you do.”

“Besides, she’s a bitch, E,” Turtle adds, emerging from the back of the plane triumphant with a Tupperware container full of weed-laced chocolate goodness.

E looks over at him, then smiles. Vince smiles back and knows with absolutely certainty that things are going to work out just like they should.


	5. Aquamess

5.

They get together during the Aquaman filming. The timing is kind of shit—Vince was still bleeding from the soul a little over Mandy, and E’s with Sloan, who Vince actually likes. She is the first and only girl E’s ever dated that Vince has actually liked as a human being, and that makes him feel bad about how it all came together. But not that bad.

Things change without him really realizing it. It’s gone from him and E being friends to him and E being something else without him knowing what happened, and he thinks it has a lot to do with that fight in the driveway and the not-talking that followed.

He’s not okay with that because honestly, of the two losses, E was the bigger one. And getting him back made it so much easier to tell Cameron yeah, I’m ready for this.

After that, though, things start to shift in the house. He’s close with E like he hasn’t been since high school. Closer, maybe.

When he’s not working (which is hardly ever—he’s got fourteen hour days six days a week), he’s with E. Vince is typically too tired to go out after shooting wraps for the day, so when Sloan doesn’t call E away, Vince vegges out with him. They watch football, they play Xbox, they run lines, and more often than not, Vince falls asleep on top of E, exhausted.

He knows that things have to change when E goes over to Sloan’s for the night and Vince realizes that not only does he miss E, he can’t sleep. Not won’t or doesn’t want to—can’t.

It’s kind of scary because Vince has always needed E, but it’s always been emotional. He didn’t want to be lonely, he didn’t want to have to make the big choices, he didn’t want to have to keep calculating the time difference between LA and Queens every time he tried to call, so he asked E to move out west. That kind of neediness he was fine with. The needs got met, and he was good. No problems there.

But this need is physical, and that he’s not okay with because since he was about twelve, his physical needs have been met by people who don’t fucking matter. Mostly because he’s always thought that the physical didn’t fucking matter. His father cheated on his mother like it was a sport he could medal in it at the Olympics, and he knew what caring about sex could do to a person. Hell, just look at E.

If this were just about sex, he’d call one of those expensive, anonymous, confidentiality-agreement-signing prostitute agencies and hire a guy that looked enough like E to just get it out of his system with. But it’s more than that, and he doesn’t really know how to handle it.

So he starts making up excuses for E to not be with Sloan. Early shoots, dragging E out to parties that Vince really doesn’t feel up for, and one time he slams his pinky finger in the door of the car accidentally-on-purpose so that E has to drive his ass to the ER and wait with him for the eight hours it takes for them to be seen.

He regrets that one. Hugely. The finger’s only got a hairline fracture, but it hurts like a bitch, and he has to shoot with the javelin glove the next day. He only manages to make it through the day on willpower and Vicodin.

Still, it gets him the weekend off, and E hangs around the house worrying like a Jewish mother. So maybe it was worth it. He falls asleep on Saturday night with his head on E’s thigh, E’s hands pulling through his hair. His injured hand is curled up against his chest, and he dreams of blowing E on top of the Maserati.

Once his finger gets better, though, things get worse. The shooting hours get longer, Vince gets more tired, and his upstairs brain and his downstairs brain decide to unite against him.

So now he honestly can’t look at E without seeing… other things. Some of them dirty, like the flash he has of what E’s tongue would look like dragging up the underside of his dick, and some of them embarrassingly domestic, like the vision he has during breakfast of what this could be like if Johnny and Turtle were gone and it were just the two of them, his feet in E’s lap, a smile in E’s eyes.

He gets a little desperate and fucks a guy named Aaron who’s on the camera crew. It doesn’t help. He hasn’t done anything with a guy since high school, and the feel of Aaron’s hands on the back of his neck become E’s when his eyes are closed. That’s just not good because now all he can think about is what E’s hands are really going to feel like on his shoulders, on his back, on his chest.

His instinct is to just tell E. Say “E, I think I’m in love with you, and I really want to fuck you” and just see what happens. He trusts E, and he honestly doesn’t think E would stop being his friend over that. It might be weird for a while, but he does much better with honesty than with hiding. 

Worst of all, there’s a one in a million chance that E might be willing to give fooling around a shot, just to help him get it out of his system. Vince doesn’t want it like that. He wants it for real.

But E’s got Sloan, and Vince likes Sloan. Genuinely. He likes that she’s around, and he likes how happy she makes E, and he just in general likes her. And even if he didn’t like her, it wouldn’t make what he wants look any less impossible.

So that leaves him alone with his thoughts at night and running love scenes with Mandy fucking Moore during the day.

Mandy doesn’t help things. In fact, she makes it worse. Because to get through the scenes, he’s had to start pretending she’s E, which is seventy-million different kinds of wrong, but Cameron says he likes his passion. So he kisses the only woman he’s ever loved and pretends that she’s his best friend.

It would be enough if E weren’t so fucking perceptive.

“Cameron’s concerned,” E says, standing over him.

Vince is sprawled on that white couch. He loves this couch. It holds him when he feels like shit. It held him through Mandy, and it’s holding him now.

“I’m doing my job,” he says, his cheek pressed against the white fabric.

He’s not just doing his job; he’s doing it well. That’s the thing. He knows he is, in spite of everything. It’s why he’s a star, goddamn it.

“I didn’t say you weren’t. But Cameron’s concerned, and I gotta admit, I’m a little worried, too.”

“Why?”

E doesn’t answer that. He just crosses his arms and stares down at Vince. It makes him feel twitchy.

“How’s the hand?” E asks.

His finger’s a little stiff, but he’s not going to say that to E. He just shrugs as best he can and stares at E’s shoes. He doesn’t wear sneakers anymore, and that makes Vince a little sad. It makes him sadder when he can’t remember the last time Eric went barefoot after ten in the morning.

“What’s going on, Vince? Is it Mandy?”

“No. It’s fine. Everything with Mandy is fine.” He doesn’t particularly like spending time with her, but there’s not a problem. Not like E’s thinking anyway.

“Then what the hell’s going on with you? You’re getting careless, and next week they start the water shoots. Cameron doesn’t feel like it’s a good idea letting you in the tank if you’re not a hundred percent together.”

“I’m together on set.”

“A hundred percent is a hundred percent. Just tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll figure it out.”

It’s his turn not to respond because really, what the hell can he say? Telling your lifelong friend and manager that you want to fuck him just doesn’t go over well in most circles.

“Vince, come on.” The couch dips as E sits down on the edge. His hip brushes against the exposed skin of Vince’s stomach, and Vince is pretty sure he’s going to explode.

“E,” he chokes because Sloan, E has Sloan, and this is so not cool. But if E doesn’t move right now, he’s going to do something stupid.

“Look, Vince,” E says, putting a hand on his back. Every muscle in Vince’s body tightens. “We can’t fix shit unless you tell me what’s going on.”

One of his mother’s favorite expressions when he was growing up was “now you’re pushing it.” It was usually what she said right before she laid into him or his brothers, but it applies now because E is pushing it with every second his hand touches him.

“I’m fine,” Vince mutters. He pushes up into a sitting position, and E’s hand slides from between his shoulder blades down to the small of his back. Vince can’t even breathe, let alone think.

“You’re not—”

“Shut up,” Vince hisses a split second before he presses his mouth to E’s.

It’s the dumbest move he’s ever made, but it’s the only thing he can do. E’s concern, which was so necessary before, seems smothering now, and he can’t do anything else.

It’s fast and wet and sloppy as hell. He only gets the barest taste of E’s lips before he’s pulling away, stunned and shocked. It’s more than enough, and it’s nothing because E’s eyes are blown in a way that has fuck all to do with sex.

“I have to go,” Vince says, jumping up and walking across the couch cushion to keep from touching E. He gets to his room and locks the door behind him before E can make a sound, then digs his phone out of his pocket. He calls the AD and tells her that he’s sick, like vomiting sick—which is kind of true because he feels nauseous as hell—and that he can’t make it tomorrow.

He doesn’t come out except to grab cereal and juice from the kitchen around two am. Every eight hours or so, one of the guys knock on the door, but he just mumbles that he’s fine and that they should go away. He knows he can’t really get away with this, but he locks himself in for two days, and then it’s the weekend.

Johnny leaves a can of soup and crackers outside his door with a can of ginger ale. It’s a nice thing to do, but it’s like putting a Band-Aid on an evisceration, and it just makes him intensely aware of how dependant he is on the guys.

Sunday rolls around with him still barricaded in his room, and he knows that he’s going to have to come out tomorrow. He’s going to have to ride with E to Cameron’s studio, and right now, he’d rather be dead.

But on Monday morning, he rolls out of bed, showers, and faces the world with his best game face. He’s faked being okay through his dad’s worst binges and his mom’s worst low swings. This should be cake by comparison.

All the same, Vince slides on his sunglasses. It’s Celebrity 101—if they can’t see your eyes, they can’t see you.

Things suck all week. That’s all there is to it. They suck. The scenes take forever to get right because he keeps getting the timing wrong. He fights with James Woods about the blocking. And even though they drive to and from set together every single day, he and E don’t talk.

Okay, that’s not fair. E talks. E tries really hard to get him to talk. The first day Vince rolls out of his room after what he now thinks of as the Big Fucking Mistake, E tries to get his attention. He spends the entire drive to the studio trying to explain why it’s okay, why he understands, and blah, blah, blah.

It’s bullshit, all of it. It’s not “okay,” and there’s nothing to “understand.” He doesn’t believe for a second that “it isn’t going to change anything” because hello, it already has. It’s changed him, even if E feels just the same as he did before.

Vince feels like his world’s ended, and everyone around him can see it. He wouldn’t mind, except that he’s not really big on sharing his feelings. He’s gone pretty Hollywood, but he’ll never be that guy.

So instead of talking, he just stares out the window of the Maserati and counts the street lights. He gets to five hundred before he realizes that this time, things are different. Shooting’s over, but E is driving the wrong way, right out of LA.

“What the hell, E?”

“What?”

“Where are we going?”

“Neutral territory.”

“Neutral territory,” Vince repeats. “The house is neutral, E. Can’t we just go back to the house? I’ve got a five am call time tomorrow.”

“I talked to Cameron. You’re doing night shoots tomorrow.”

“You did what?”

“Look, Jessica Alba’s house isn’t fucking neutral, Vince. Hell, this car isn’t fucking neutral. Just shut up and trust me okay? You used to be able to do that.”

They end up at a hotel in Newport Beach that’s right on the coast. It’s good because Vince can stare out at the Pacific instead of watching Eric wear out the carpet with his pacing.

“You’re not leaving until we sort this shit out.”

“I have work,” Vince argues.

“Cameron’s not going to let you in the water until you get it together, so if you can’t do that, then no, you don’t have work.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Look me in the eye when you say that.”

He turns his head and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He can’t meet Eric’s eyes because he can’t stop looking at E’s mouth.

“Vince, are you listening to me?”

No, he’s not. He doesn’t really have that to give at this point. Then E licks his lips, and fuck it, his self control has left the building completely.

He kisses E so hard that the two of them travel across the room and crash into the chest of drawers beneath the generic hotel mirror. The back of E’s legs hit faux-wood, and he trips back so he’s sitting on top of the drawers, which is fine by Vince.

He can reach down and grab one of E’s legs like this. He can tug it up and back while he undoes E’s fly and wrap his hand around E’s dick.

He can, so he does, and E makes a sound like a dog with its tail caught in a door, and that’s good. That tastes right, and it feels right, and he has to kiss E deeper and stroke him harder.

E’s head drops back away from his and cracks the mirror. Seven years of bad luck are worth this, Vince thinks. Anything is worth this.

He moves his kisses to E’s neck, sucking and bruising the skin under his mouth and not giving a shit about Sloan as he does it. In fact, he’s pretty sure that he wants her to see, but mostly he’s doing it because E hasn’t told him to stop. Not once, not yet.

And then E’s coming hot and wet on Vince’s hand and their shirts. He slumps forward, and Vince leans into him.

“That wasn’t the plan,” E mumbles into the fabric of his t-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Vince says, even though he’s not. He’s not sorry, even though he should be because E’s his best friend, and he belongs to Sloan, and this is wrong. But he’s not.

The only thing he’s sorry about is that he can’t lick E’s come off his fingers. But you’re supposed to apologize after something this.

“What’re you doing, Vince?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

“I mean right now.”

“Very funny.”

“I—E, I don’t know. I just… did.”

“And that’s supposed to be a good enough explanation? You just jerked me off. Like you just kissed me back at the house last week? I’ve got a girlfriend, Vince.”

Vince shrugs and resists the urge to rub the back of his neck. His hand’s sticky. “Sorta. Yeah. I’m sorry.”

E is looking at him like he’s a puzzle he’s never seen the answer to. Like E thinks that if he looks hard enough, he’ll see the big picture and be able to put it together.

Vince can see it when the picture becomes clear to E. His eyes get a little darker, and his jaw tightens before he closes the space between them.

“Why?”

“E,” Vince sighs, wishing for the first time that E wasn’t so close. He can’t think. And he can’t protect himself with E so close. 

E shakes his head. “Tell me why. I deserve that.”

“Because, shit, I don’t know. It’s you. It’s you, and I just did.”

“People don’t just do shit like this after twenty years of friendship, Vince. They have a reason.”

Of course there’s a reason. The reason’s been hanging out in his subconscious for years, unspoken and unacknowledged like it’s supposed to be. 

The problem is that somewhere in the last few weeks, he’s lost that little voice that tells him when to shut the hell up. So instead of doing his job and acting, he tells the truth.

“I love you, so I did.”

“You love me, so you did,” E repeats, his eyes wide.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You can’t do anything easy can you, Vince?” E asks before he grabs Vince’s face in his hands.

E’s kiss pushes them back and off the chest of drawers and towards one of the beds. They land with a bounce, and Vince is grinning as E stops sucking on his lip just long enough to get his shirt off.

“Do you love me?” Vince asks. He feels like a girl, and he sounds like a fag, but really how much does that matter right now? E’s kissing his way down his chest even though he’s got a beautiful smart sexy girlfriend back in LA, and a faggoty girl question’s never been more important.

He rolls his eyes, like that’s a stupid question or something. Like everything important in Vince’s universe doesn’t hang on the answer. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” E says in a soft voice, kissing the skin of Vince’s stomach. 

Then E dips his tongue into Vince’s navel before traveling farther down, and fuck. E’s mouth is hot and wet and tight, and okay, he can work with that.

It’s not perfect. There’s Sloan and the movie and Ari and the guys and the whole rest of the world to deal with but it’ll get there. He and E always manage to make it work.


End file.
